Team Sanddodgers

Well the good news is that the Saab has finally been sold! We did wonder if anyone would actually want to buy the car based on the state it was finally in when we arrived to The Gambia but the good people of the Safari Gardens Hotel managed to work their magic.

”How much?” I hear you ask. Well, an amazing 6000GMD!! (Gambian Dalasi) which equates to roughly £100…….. about £60 less than we bought it for!

I don’t think any of us will be getting into the export business any time soon.

For a full list of all of the cars sold then please check out the auction pages on the plymouth-banjul organisers site. Overall, more than 6million GMD was raised this year for the local Gambian charities supported by the rally. This is an excellent amount and money and will go a long way to helping the schools, hospitals and local businesses improve the lives of local Gambian residents.

Long may it continue, its an excellent adventure and great way to improve the lives of the Gambian people. Why not sign up for this year’s rally. Applications are open!

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Manufacturers Shop

It was great to see lots of you at the home coming party last Friday, thanks Pete for choosing such a nice venue and thanks to the Camel and Artichoke manager for kicking out those cheeky city boys that refused to move…. nice one!

We had a nice relaxing eve pursuing the videos, the pictures in Gareth’s little photo album and telling stories of our adventure, it was nice to re-live it a little.

Also, we have done what we believe to be the final final final count up and the grand total for the fundraising efforts is a MASSIVE:

A little more than our original £10,000 target I think you will agree. We would like to extent our gratitude to Tearfund, MacMillan and Metronet for their part in our challenge and ,of course, to all of you that have donated so generously to two very worthy charities doing some excellent work at home at abroad.

BUT IT IS NOT TOO LATE! The just giving pages will remain open for the next couple of months and I would love to make Pete’s life a little more difficult by more people donating after the final count up. So if you haven’t donated and would like to, please do. As an incentive, any donations over £30 will result in a FREE Sanddodgers DVD being posted direct to your door, each containing all of our daily diary videos, the team interviews, our promo vids, our final summary video and an excellent photo compilation.

You can’t say fairer than that!

We are back…!

To celebrate we are hosting a Sanddodgers homecoming party at 7:30pm on Friday 23^rd Feb in the fittingly named the Camel and Artichoke

(Just to point out we ate camels not artichokes in the desert!)

We have booked the upstairs room and we will be premièring our final video on the plasma screens.

The Camel and Artichoke is just round the corner from Waterloo Station ( directions here). A huge thank you to all who sponsored and donated!

Currently we have raised over £15,000 for charity and its still coming in!

Thanks

G

We have finally managed to get hold of a copy of one of the interviews shown on ITV’s London Tonight News. This particular clip was shown on Sunday 21st January after our return to the UK.

For those that missed it, here it is:

Pete has his head in accountancy mode this week as we do the last of the Sanddodgers collecting to work out just how much we have managed to raise for Tearfund and Macmillan. Current count suggests we could be nearing £15000!

Thank you to everyone who has donated so far, you are the best. If you haven’t had the chance and would like to, there is still time. Just follow the link to tearfund or Macmillan below, enter your details and we can even scoop the Gift Aid off it if you’re a UK tax payer…. Brilliant!

Lets see if we can make £15,000

One thing we did do before leaving Banjul was a quick interview with each of the teams we travelled through the sahara with, namely: Rob and Andy - Clayton Farm Crew, Sean, Simon and Adrian - Desert Cowboys, Warren & Louis - Fan-belt Warriors, John & Jayne - Team Beeblebrox and Lynn & Carl - Firing on 4.

It was a pleasure to travel with you guys, so many hilarious memories of the journey. Looking forward to meeting up with you all again soon.

Meet the teams vid: